A Favourite of the Gods and a Compass Error

by Sybille Bedford

  “I’ve never been to Paris,” said Constanza.

  “Provincial. I long to take you one day. Will you come?”

  “How charming of you to put it in the interrogative,” she said.

  “I forgot,” said Simon.

  “That was charming.”

  Their fortnight in the country went off like the picnic it was. Angelina looked after them; Anna had paved the house with hampers. Simon unpacked these himself, saying that it made him feel that he was loved. Constanza managed to get hold of a couple of horses and, although Simon said that this was his least favourite way of getting about, they went for long rides. One afternoon they found themselves in Somerset. “There’s a house I know quite near here,” Constanza said, “I only saw it once, an Italian house, I’d like to see it again.”

  “Italianate,” said Simon.

  They went. They looked down the drive at the honey-coloured façade. “I can’t bear it,” Constanza said, “it’s too lovely. I mustn’t start falling for houses, like mama.”

  “It is rather to my taste, too,” said Simon drily.

  “Let’s call on them. The time I went it was night. I was staying in Dorset and we all drove over for a dance, you know how that changes a house. Let’s go in and look.”

  “We won’t,” said Simon. “I know them, too. It belongs to my uncle. My father’s brother.”

  “This—house? Simon! Why did you never tell me?”

  “It isn’t mine, is it?”

  “I shall not get used to the English. If it were my uncle, we’d all be living with him.”

  “Come on,” said Simon, “the horses are getting cold.”

  6

  1915 WAS a long year. Constanza, doing something more responsible now than filing forms, was kept busy at her job; at night she and Simon went to parties. There were always people on leave, people about to be shipped off, news of people killed. They seldom left London. After Italy had entered the war, most of her conscious thoughts were there. She read the letters from home and the letters that came for Mena, she read the Corriere and the Vatican paper and she read the casualty lists. In England she felt one with her friends, in Italy with the whole of the people. She could feel what it was like to be inside those thick and ill-made uniforms, those bulging puttees, she could breathe the dust of the summer roads, she felt what they felt about going, the jokes, the fatalism, the shrugging, the fear, and the desperate patience of the women. Two boys of Giulia’s, the coal-man of the Via degli Specchi, Carla’s eldest, Mario the carpenter’s son and Mario of the Via Monserrato, the whole of the Campo di Fiori gang, half of Castelfonte. . . .

  “I feel I can hold up my head once more,” said Anna.

  And Constanza tried not to nurse her other grief, which was her gradual turning against her mother.

  Simon stayed at home most of the day, reading for the Bar. Constanza came and went as she used to do in her parents’ house as a girl. Only towards the autumn, when the baby she was expecting began to show, she stayed in more. She found she could hardly read. “So much for that resource,” she said. “Mama, I wish you had taught me to sew.”

  Anna did not sew either. The baby was not very welcome. Simon referred to it as the pram in the hall, and spoke wistfully of a sage-femme he knew of in the rue de la Tombe Issoire and wondered if her likes could not be conjured up in England; Constanza, cross and impatient though she was about the business, would have none of it. The principessa was only conventionally pleased.

  One night, it was one of Anna’s charity occasions and a very glittering one, Constanza saw an exceedingly slim youth in Italian officer’s uniform walk into the ball-room. She went towards him.

  “Tu!”

  “Constanza!”

  When their duetto had dwindled to recitative, she said, “How is it possible?”

  “Military Mission. Youngest member.”

  “Safe and whole!”

  “Safe; not whole.” He laughed, he beamed, he tapped his ankle in the slim and polished boot. “A bullet. Not even Austrian—our own! A recruit dropped his rifle—San Vincenzo must have guided his hand—and in my very first week out. The ankle isn’t much good any more. Now I have a staff job. Did you pray for me, Constanza?”

  “How not!” she said.

  He gave her a swift appraising look. “Sposata?”

  “What else?”

  Simon, in a white tie, hovered, now came up. “Go away,” Constanza said, “the tenente is a very old friend, I want him to myself.” Simon walked on.

  The lieutenant followed him with his eyes. “A jealous inglese,” he said.

  “Oh, surely not. He’s my husband.”

  “Figurati! That’s no reason.”

  “These days it is,” said Constanza.

  •

  Simon passed the first part of the Bar Examination as he had said he would, effortlessly and well. News of this, and news of the coming baby had seeped into Northumberland; so had other reports shedding a rather different light on the principessa. The family began making overtures. After a fortnight they were at a stage at which Simon had lunched with his father at his club, his father had called at Regent’s Park, Simon’s mother had written to Constanza asking her to stay, and Constanza had accepted for a later date.

  “That doesn’t help them out of their dilemma,” Simon said, “which is the neighbours’ knowing that they haven’t met you before this brat is born. Their first grand-child. That’s the trouble.”

  “Ask them here,” said Constanza. Simon said he might. He had other things to think about. Conscription. “It’s bound to be here by the New Year.”

  “Conscientious Objector?”

  “You’d like me to be one, my sweet?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t see myself. Goodness knows why. I object enough.”

  “Could you face it?”

  “I could face it all right. It’s the sort of thing I’ve been up against at home. It’s just a feeling I have; perhaps I wouldn’t be much of a credit. Let’s leave it to better men.”

  “An exempt job?”

  “Would you like that for me?”

  “Yes. I would do everything to help you get one.”

  “Perhaps not my thing either. I’m better than that. Oh, I’m not thinking about the bloody country, I wash my hands of the mob’s war, the politicians’ war (why won’t they let Asquith stop it). I’m thinking about my friends, in the end one’s got to do as one’s friends do. When I’m old I want to be able to sit and drink my wine with them in peace. If any of them will be left—if I will be left. But I have a feeling I shall. You will bring me luck, Constanza.”

  “Don’t,” she said.

  Simon said, “You’re as superstitious as a savage.”

  “I know. I can’t help it.”

  •

  So Simon went and got himself fixed up with a commission before the Military Enlistment Act became law. He was off training when Constanza’s girl was born. He did not like his new life; but he was twenty-two years old and he had a tough streak and he was fascinated by some of the military goings-on, and his spirit was not crushed one bit.

  “Rather a mercy it is what it is,” he said, when he came home on a forty-eight hours’ pass, “it’ll keep my people’s paws off it.”

  “Girls don’t get involved with inheriting and that sort of thing,” said Constanza.

  “There’s nothing to inherit,” said Simon.

  He was quite interested to see it and stood a long time watching. “Helpless creature,” he said, “give me a young monkey any day. It isn’t even a bambino, it’s all fair like me.”

  “Hair at this stage means nothing,” said Constanza. But the baby’s eyes were unmistakably blue.

  “Pure Howland,” said Anna. “Every feature. A reversion to type.”

  “It’ll be a bit young for Giorgio to play with,” said Constanza, “we do seem to manage things badly.”

  •

  When they were alone Constanza said,
“Mama is having a Catholic priest in to baptize it.”

  “All right by me,” he said.

  “All right by me,” said Constanza.

  “Doesn’t it have to have a name?”

  “It does.”

  “Most English girls’ names are of a frumpishness——”

  “I wasn’t thinking of an English name. I want to call her Flavia.”

  “Doesn’t sound too bad. Please to explain?”

  “It was my father’s mother’s name. She adored mama, so mama can hardly object.”

  “I get it,” said Simon. “As near as you dare.”

  “Well, you would hardly want to call her Rica?”

  •

  That Christmas either they did not go to Northumberland; but soon after, Constanza kept her promise and they went up to spend two nights. Simon, who was now on embarkation leave, insisted that it must be no more. His last days on earth, he said. It was all much as he had described. He remained himself, and Constanza, who knew more now what it cost him, admired him for it. She herself had been used to a certain measure of philistinism and as it had never interfered with her own life, it troubled her much less. What did get her down was the emotional blankness.

  “Ought we to conclude then,” she said, “that they’re all smouldering cauldrons underneath?”

  She and Simon were alone in his cold dressing-room, but he had boldly taken up a decanter of brandy from downstairs. “I shouldn’t bank on it,” he said.

  “Goodness, caro, your sister pulls a long face.”

  “She’s every reason to, poor thing.”

  “If she doesn’t hurry up, it’ll stay that way. Your family reminds me so of mama’s secret friends. You never knew the worst of them, a poisonous old crow who hung out in Rome for our sins. We used to call her la Trommo-Vailé. I expect you never ran into her?”

  “Run into her? Run away, more like! You don’t know who she is, she is a relation of my mother’s, oh quite distant, but as she’s fearfully rich—she is—and childless and all that, they made her my sister’s God-mother.”

  “Misericordia,” said Constanza. “Does that mean Flavia is a blood relation of that woman? I really must begin to make it up for her as mama would say. And talking of revelations, caro, when you came to us with no cuffs to your shirts—I mean metaphorically; you were always beautifully dressed, darling, much better than I—we took it that you were brought up in the poorhouse. Well, the food here is like that, but they say it’s the war and perhaps they really get no jam and bacon in Northumberland, and no coal or petrol either. But: the house is not small, and even if all those servants are as old as they look they must get some wages, and you can’t have so many Daimlers under dust-sheets if you’re really poor. I’ve come to the conclusion that your parents must be quite rich; like Mrs. Throg.”

  “It’ll all go to my brother Tom,” said Simon, “the rest of us have been told to expect nothing.”

  •

  Simon went to France. For Constanza there came again a time that was suspense and nothing else. Again she dared hardly take a step or breathe; above all she did not dare let go. It was as if she had to hold on to a thread that had to be kept taut. Her bond with Simon was of a nature other than anything she felt for him when he was present; she hardly thought about him as a person now, and of herself not at all: what she had before her night and day was Simon’s life. The sense that this strange vigilance was necessary never left her and the strain was very great.

  Simon wrote to her every day he could, and often a second letter came for Anna. They were good letters; Constanza could hardly bear to read them.

  Once that winter, a Northumberland Herbert was on the casualty list. It was Simon’s second brother, Harry, killed at Verdun.

  In March Simon got wounded. When he was back in England, he talked as he had used to, he had kept his talent for putting himself across as himself. He was self-confident, almost radiant. “Constanza—I’ve done it: Honourably wounded; and out of it.” His knee was badly smashed. “I’m damned if I’m going to lose my leg,” he said, and he did not. To Anna he sent this word: I’m going to enjoy my convalescence, please, cara, send me all the good things you can get hold of.

  To Constanza he said, “Still hurts like bloody hell. How I hate pain. Poor old Harry, poor chap—but then he was a real soldier, a professional, confound them. Not that they ever dreamt of this.” He told her: “It was much worse than you and I imagined, much worse. May I only remember it in my nightmares. People going through with it is the final proof that we are all insane. Or hypnotized. I couldn’t have stood it much longer, I would have cracked up soon. The relief of it now! And being able to look forward to a serene old age. Do admit—I was lucky.”

  •

  By summer Simon had a job in Whitehall. Everybody said that he was brilliant at it, and he was promoted almost at once. Approval agreed with him and he began to work extremely hard. Constanza seldom saw him. He was living again at Regent’s Park; in daytime they were at their separate offices and at night if Simon did not work they often went to slightly different parties.

  Simon’s leg had remained stiff, and when he began to walk again he did not use a cane, but immediately acquired a very rapid gait that seemed to be propelled rather than impeded by a light, rhythmic limp.

  His father came up. They ate another luncheon at his club and the outcome of it was that Simon was offered and accepted a rather decent allowance.

  Occasionally Constanza was able to call for Simon at mid-day, and they would eat their sandwiches together in St. James’s Park.

  “It’s nearly as much again as we have from the trust fund,” she said.

  “They’re beginning to be kind to the survivors.”

  “I was thinking perhaps we shouldn’t let mama pay for everything any more.”

  “She doesn’t mind,” said Simon.

  “Even Flavia’s doctor’s bills are sent to her.”

  “I thought the creature was never ill, like you and I.”

  “Oh, babies have to be looked at from time to time.”

  “We never were,” he said.

  “Yes, Simon; and you never stop complaining about your childhood.”

  “You don’t really love me.”

  “I brought you a bottle of Graves,” she said.

  “Tepid?”

  “Not to the best of my ability. Here.”

  “Damp newspaper,” said Simon. “You’re almost as clever as I am.”

  “Your mother has written again about the Nanny question.”

  “Tell her to shut up.”

  “I have told her how nicely Mena and Angelina are looking after her. No-one could be better than Mena.”

  “She means an English nanny,” said Simon.

  Before they had to be on their ways, Simon said lightly, “You were awfully late last night?”

  “Dawn,” said Constanza.

  Suddenly furious, he said, “And where were you till . . . dawn?”

  “Where I told you, where you knew I was, dancing, at the Grafton Galleries.”

  He snorted.

  “Why didn’t you pick me up?”

  “I have work to do.”

  “So have other people.”

  “Who did you dance with?”

  “I didn’t make a list. What’s the matter, caro? aren’t you being a slight idiot?”

  But he did not respond.

  “You are more than a bore,” she said, “and this isn’t the first time. I won’t stand for it, you know. It’s . . . unseemly.”

  “Your fine words,” he said. “Well, I have work to do. Thank God.” And off he walked.

  •

  Another time they were coming home together late in a taxi. Simon said to her, “You treat me as if I were a member of your gang.”

  “So you are, darling, and a nice thing too.”

  “I want more than that,” he said.

  Simon was rather drunk and so she let this pass.

  “Eve
rybody knows that American women treat their men like dirt . . . even half Americans. I am your husband.”

  “Yes, caro.”

  “But you don’t love me. You don’t love me for myself, you didn’t want to marry me,” and he burst into tears.

  •

  Next day he apologized. Overwork . . . too much to drink. . . . They both felt it was a time to be polite rather than dot i’s, so they exchanged a few jokes and let it go at that.

  •

  “What’s come over Simon?” Constanza said to Mr. James.

  “Well—his war, short though it was, must have been a big strain. Reaction. And as you know he is a very spoilt boy and you are a very run-after woman.”

  “He wasn’t spoilt much,” she said. “Well, until now.”

  “In the new jargon,” said Mr. James, “he was longing for a mother and a father. Now he’s got your mother and his own father—don’t tell me he doesn’t feel flattered—not to mention all those Government Offices treating him like a prodigy. All very different from the cheeky rebel he was two years ago.”

  “And how do I suddenly not fit in?”

  “Simon has a lot of things to be proud of now, but the story of his marriage to you is not one of them. And you’ve become the wrong kind of wife. You are still a feather in his cap, but he’s not sure he can count on your staying put. Will you?”

  “I stayed put so far. What does he want?”

  “Assurance for the future. Being looked up to. His own way.”

  “We have so many same ways,” said Constanza.

  “He may want to lead.”

  “Simon was not like that. I always thought Simon was different from anybody else.”

  “My dear, very few people are that,” said Mr. James. “Simon is one in a thousand. His mother wants us to have an English nanny; now you say he wants an English wife.”

  “How fast you go, dear girl.”

  “Yes—too fast. I don’t see sweet gay Simon with a Miss Mouse.”

  •

  In October there was talk of Simon being sent to Washington on a commission.

  “Interesting?”

  “Oh enormously,” he said, “I’d love to go.”

  “Good.”